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One Guy Went On 100 Dates In One Year And Lived to Tell the Tale

A comedian named Evan Bardem went on a date, live, onstage at New York's Magnet theater. This was his 101st date of the year to celebrate the completion of his project One Hundred Dates. Personally, one date a year is more than enough for me, but Evan and I discussed his motives, the project and life since.

Smitten: Explain your show to people who haven't seen it.

Evan: OK, so I went on 100 dates in one year. All different activities, mostly different people, although there was a second date or two.

Smitten: And what inspired you to do this?

Evan: Well, I'm sort of a serial monogamist. The longest I'd been single before this was like six months, and I had maybe gone on half a dozen dates, and those were all, like, post-breaup fallout. I generally have a girlfriend, even when I didn't set out to get one and I'm trying to take some time to myself--I'm just weak in that area, I guess. I knew I needed a construct to keep me single, basically.

Also, I write a lot of comedic stuff about women, I have this blog called When Will We Kiss that features pictures of female celebrities I like, kind of like a romantic comedy thing.

Smitten: How'd you actually come up with the idea?

Evan: My friend Gaby Dunn did this thing 100 Interviews that she ended up getting a lot of press for, and I figured "why not."

Smitten: The girls knew, right?

Evan: Yeah, they all knew. Two at the beginning didn't know, but I told them later. You'd think that people wouldn't act like themselves in a situation like that, but honestly, after a few drinks, it always felt like the barriers had come down.

Smitten: How did you meet them? What was the breakdown?

Evan: 23 from dating websites, 3 from HowAboutWe, 1 from Craigslist, 15 people via me sending an email sorta randomly, 4 Facebook messages, 2 from Twitter--only 2, I thought that was interesting--18 people I asked out randomly at parties and stuff and 35 people I already knew.

Smitten: Did you learn anything from doing this?

Evan: Oh, yeah. There was a lot to get used to. Not that there's a formula, but nerves calm down, you understand how to be reasonable, and not to be indecisive--

Smitten: Oh, is that a thing? Indecisiveness?

Evan:: Yeah, since the dates were so regimented (you can see just how regimented here) I thought that might be weird for the girls, but generally they were like "Wow, this is well thought-out."

Smitten: So it was a good experience?

Evan: Yeah, I think people forget that dating doesn't have to be this serious, stressful thing. That's why everyone just "hangs out" and hooks up now instead of formally asking people on dates, because it's daunting. But I went on my first date for this last February, and it wasn't scary or anything, it was just a casual night out. I had a lot of fun. Just getting to know people is valuable, and if something happens, great.

Smitten: Are you still single?

Evan: It's only been [a few] weeks since the project ended, so yeah, I'm still single.

Just discussing this with Evan kind of exhausted me--if you conglomerate all of those dates, you end up with like two straight months of dating! How in the world can you muster up the enthusiasm to ask that many strangers if they have siblings and where they went to college?

Would you do a project like this, or is it just too much for you? Would you have gone out with Evan?